


and while you sleep in the pouring rain

by TypingMonkey (purty64)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast, The Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25249963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purty64/pseuds/TypingMonkey
Summary: I know I'll be with you someday,and so I'll have a good one 'til thenjust like you told me---Damien was not an only child. He wouldshouldhave been a middle one.
Relationships: Sir Angelo & Sir Damien (Penumbra Podcast)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	and while you sleep in the pouring rain

**Author's Note:**

> been listening to too much of [Jacks Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkNnQBizT44).

As Angelo steps outside and onto the covered porch of Rilla’s hut, sitting beside his best friend and fellow knight, he remembers the date.  
He always remembers the date.

It was raining, the loud, _heavy_ monsoon rains that only ever came to the Citadel, to the North, and Damien was watching the rain.  
“He was going to be a knight.”

Angelo said nothing. He already knew. He’d been told a dozen times already, once a year, every year, almost. He knew, and he would listen again and again, until Damien didn’t need to tell someone, anymore.

“He was going to be a knight, and she…” he trails off, still staring into the rain. “She was teaching me. He was going to be a knight, and I- a scholar.”

The lulling susserus of the rain pulls out the moment between them, and Angelo places one hand on his friends arm. A comforting weight.

“My father was…” _Cruel,_ Angelo doesn’t say, because whenever he has Damien flinched and changed the subject _(it’s not that he doesn’t know, it’s not that he is oblivious to his father’s temperment, but if he admits that he was cruel then he has to work through every one and all of his feelings surrounding him and he was kind and awful and loved him and mistreated him and how does he reconcile that? where would he go from there?)_ , “… set in his ways. He thought that the eldest son should be a warrior, so- he was going to be a knight.”

~~_A beat-_ ~~

_"Aaron,_ was going to be a knight." Angelo can hear as Damien’s throat starts to close, tears almost overtaking him, and rubs his thumb the back of his arm, waiting as he takes a breath.

Some years it’s easier for Damien to speak, letting his storytelling instincts and bardic training take over, getting into the rhythm of the story and letting it pour out in a rush. Some years, he’d only be able to get out a sentence or two, starting and stopping over and over again. Some years it took a few minutes for the date to release him. Some years it took days. Angelo, and the rest of his ~~family friends~~ _family,_ he knew, would wait as long as it took for him to work through the emotions this anniversary brought back to him.

He may have lost his family all those years ago, but he’d found and made another one.

“After- after, I was the eldest. By technicality, no doubt, but _eldest_ nonetheless. So, I stopped- training, to speak, to weave a story into the air-” his breath caught. “My mother… my mother had been teaching me, and my father- had no skill in it. So I became a knight.” For the first time since Angelo stepped out onto the porch, Damien moved, bringing his legs up and curling against his side, tears stinging his eyes. “I became a knight.”

They sat like that until the rain, slowly but inevitably, petered out to a drizzle. And Damien finally cried.

**Author's Note:**

> ties in a little to [this](https://pinkpuffballdude.tumblr.com/post/188891006685/damien-second-of-two-sons-grows-up-under-the), which you can read for a bit of extra background, though it's not necessary and kind of old and not up to my standards anymore. in any case, I hope you liked it!


End file.
